If we don’t need it, we don’t buy it. That has been our motto for the past two years. Living in a confined space means you don’t buy “stuff” just because:

• it’s a bargain
• it would look nice on a shelf
• it’s pretty
• we might use it someday
• it’s handcrafted (or variations like, “It’s Native American made!”)
• we want a souvenir of our visit *
• we can stock up and save
• somebody said we had to get one of these
• we collect _______ (fill in the blank) **

… even though these are all truly American reasons to buy, in normal circumstances. I know, in America it’s not what you spent, it how much you “saved” by buying it. But in an Airstream it’s not what you saved that matters, but where the heck you’re going to put it! For this reason, we try to focus our purchases on consumables and necessary equipment.

* We do get very small souvenirs. Eleanor buys pins at the national parks we visit and has bought a few tiny Indian drums about 3″ tall, and Emma earns Junior Ranger badges & patches. I don’t really get into souvenirs so mine are photos.

** Emma does have a rock collection but the rules are that no rock should be larger than 1″, only one sample of each type is allowed, and the collection periodically gets offloaded to save weight. Also, people are entranced by the cute little girl who collects rocks and so she gets a lot of them for free.

With this philosophy we have not only saved money but a lot of dusting of artifacts. But now of course we own a house and it echoes with emptiness. It is just begging for a whole bunch of “stuff” to decorate the halls, fill the shelves, and line the walkways.

A friend suggested that we make it a “zen house”, with very little in it. That way those few items we have will carry special meaning. “Keep it minimalist,” he suggested, and Eleanor agreed. We still remember the pain of getting rid of all the stuff we had in the last house. It took two summers, and we ended up giving away most of the stuff because — shockingly — nobody really saw any value in the various artifacts we collected, including us. It was really frustrating to open the boxes in our storage unit and find heaps of things that we paid good money for, and yet which we no longer valued. After a while all I could see in box after box was piles of greenbacks being tossed out. So we committed that we wouldn’t do it again.

But hey, we didn’t have anything to do today, so we thought “Why not drop by the Tanque Verde Swap Meet, and then the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show?” That’s a little like an alcoholic dropping by the corner bar just to see what’s going on with his old friends.

Fortunately, we met temptation and won, mostly. To our eyes, the Swap Meet was just a giant flea market filled with junk. It has been running in Tucson for thirty years, but in all that time they haven’t seemed to be able to conjure up anything other than the same stuff all the other flea markets have. Except for the product above: a box of breasts. They’re called Mimi Balls. (Who is Mimi?)

In the interest of journalistic integrity I squeezed one, as the box suggests, and despite the claim on the box (“breast ball with I Love You Sound”), it was silent. It also felt about as real as a porn starlet (only a supposition since I have never personally squeezed a porn starlet). Still, it could be an amusing gift in the right circumstances and I seriously considered buying a pair for my friend Dr. C.

Two other salient points: (1) Eleanor refused to pose with them for this blog — can you believe that? (2) The box says they’re for “Age 5 and up”.

I am grateful that the Tanque Verde Swap Meet had so little of interest to us, but Eleanor says it is really that our perspective on things has changed so much that we can’t bring ourselves to buy stuff that we’d like but really don’t need. We are well trained now.

So, wallet intact, the next stop was one of the 50+ venues of the giant Tucson Gem & Mineral Show. It runs from today through Feb 17. Our favorite stop is Tucson Electric Park, where there are enough displays and vendors to keep you busy all day. Emma spends much of her time looking down at the ground for bits & pieces of rocks to collect for free, and Eleanor hunts for beads. There were a lot of both.

We got out of Electric Park after about four hours without violating our guidelines. Emma bought a pair of little fossils of a leaf in sandstone for $3 (fossils are part of her rock collection), and Eleanor bought some beads, which she uses to make jewelry for friends. However, I got sucked in by a vendor who had a very nice collection of Roman coins. I’ve always wanted one for the same reason that I like meteorites: they are inspiring. Think about where this silver coin has been in the last 2,000 years!

The coin I bought depicts Emperor Gallienus and was struck in silver between 258 and 260 AD. On the face it shows Gallienus wearing his crown and on the reverse it shows him on the right receiving a globe from Jupiter, which symbolizes the gods’ approval of the Emperor dominating the world. It’s in good enough condition to clearly see the beard on Gallienus’ face, which just fascinates me.

Did I need a coin nearly two millennia old? This question plagued me while I was looking at them. The coin has no value to me as jewelry, and it has no useful purpose at all. Yet, here it is on my desk, with Gallienus looking up at me from history.

I will keep it in the safe place I keep my unwearable Hamilton Ventura watch, in the hopes that both items will appreciate in value and perhaps contribute in a small way to retirement. At least it is small and has some intrinsic value, whereas the Mimi Ball is just a fake boob.

Even with that justification in mind, it spooks me to think we could so easily get back on the path of collecting stuff we don’t need. Being back in a house, with less to occupy our time, we feel like dieters at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Buying stuff we don’t need is a habit we’ve all learned just as a result of being part of this society. We spent two years un-learning that habit, and now we’ve got to stay on the wagon.

It would be a failure if we came back to the house in the fall and found it full of things that we didn’t remember buying. If we are careful, we can keep our priorities on what matters: enjoying life, educating Emma, sharing with friends & family — all things that don’t cost much. As they say, the best things in life aren’t things. But sticking to lofty ideals such as that one is harder than it might seem.